Frank Giampaolo's Maximizing Tennis Potential

The following post is an excerpt from the Second Edition of The Tennis Parent’s Bible
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ELITE TENNIS PARENT JOB POST

Before we dig deeper into the more serious components of the tennis parent’s role, let’s first laugh a bit about what a “Tennis Parent Needed” internet job post would look like…

With “tongue firmly in cheek” I created the below piece for Tennis Magazine which ran last year. The point of detailing this incredibly difficult and sometimes thankless job is to acknowledge the love and dedication that go into developing and nurturing your child’s life skills.

Tennis Parent Job Description:

• Positive team player needed for 168 hour per week position.
• Candidate must possess a universal desire to be screamed at, talked down to and be willing to be hated 5-6 days a week.
• Successful applicant must have an uncanny sense of “Buddha like” calmness in an often psychotic, stressful, chaotic environment.
• Candidate must be willing to work early mornings, late evenings and most weekends.
• Candidate must be willing to forget about their own personal interests, workout routines, sports and hobbies.
• Candidate must not expect to go on vacation due to the year round tournament obligations.
• Successful applicant should plan on missing traditional family holidays due to Thanksgiving Nationals, Winter Super Nationals, Spring Break/Easter Bowl, Labor Day and Memorial Day Events.

Requirements:

• H R Skills– Interviewing, hiring and firing tennis coaches, trainers, hitters and off court specialists…with the enthusiasm of Donald Trump.
• Accounting /Banking Skills- Possess an extremely thick check book and be willing and able to max out all of their major credit cards.
• Designated Driver- Must be willing to put 100 thousand miles on the family car and enjoy most of your meals behind the wheel.
• Expect your child to occasionally go “Tennis-Brain Dead“- Be willing and able to except that your child will occasionally forget everything they were taught during the last $5000.00 worth of lessons and blow several events a year.
• Scheduling Manager- World class juggling skills required to organize the ever changing schedules of booking practice courts, times & logistics, hired hitters practice partners, lessons and events.
• Booking Agent– Flexible skills required to book last minute airlines, cars and hotels.
• VIP/24 Hour Courier Service: Laundry service, racquet re-stringing service, drug store pharmaceuticals pickup and delivery service, bed time psychology sessions.
• Fashion Coordinator/Personal Shopper- Purchasing only the latest and greatest shoes and matching clothes.
• Maintenance Knowledge– General Maintenance of equipment such as racquet re-gripping, clothing malfunctions, shoe lace replacement…
• Parental Intuition- Must have the uncanny ability to become expendable and invisible in a seconds notice and/or appear bright eyed/ happy to help two minutes later.
• Match Performance Review- Must be willing to evaluate a crummy performance by first pointing out fifty positive observations but NEVER share negative feedback without starting WWIII.

Wages and Expenses:

• There is no pay for this position.
• All the work and travel related expenses will not be reimbursed.